Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Continent.

The USA is descending into technocratic authoritarianism and President Dumpy's international diplomacy skills have all the allure and charm of a used prophylactic. Come on Europe - your time is now.

For seasoned White House observers and anyone living in the UK, the last 48 hours has been a period of remarkable contrasts. In Trump’s ‘Brave New America’ gameshow, contestants compete to survive an Oval Office meeting without the President handing them their arse on a platter. Remarkably, French President Emmanuel Macron somehow managed to disagree with President Dumpy on almost every single talking point and get away with it. I’m still not quite sure how he did that, but chapeau nonetheless. Through to the next round. When British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer arrived in Washington, many on this side of the pond watched and held their breath. Even the most ardent critics of Starmer must, however, grudgingly admit that he played a canny hand of cards. The optics certainly weren’t great – seeing our PM being forced to kiss the Wotsit-dusted man-baby’s ring made for unpalatable viewing – but cool and wise heads had obviously given that meeting a great deal of thought, and an invite letter from Chuck 3 for an unprecedented second state visit went a long way to helping Starmer emerge from the White House with giblets still attached. It wasn’t pretty and we’re all still holding our noses, but Presidents come and go, and the substance always matters more than the superficial headlines. Whether or not Starmer can now go on and capitalise to deliver any kind of trade deal with the US that is remotely beneficial to the UK remains to be seen, but the fictional Sir Humphrey and colleagues would probably be satisfied. Of course, it goes without saying that this is a shocking state of affairs – having to pander to the fragile ego of a narcissist who blatantly has zero interest in the generally-understood constructs, rules and norms of international diplomacy is completely offensive – but many career politicians and civil servants have obviously made their peace with the fact that this is how business will have to be done in the new normal. And anyway, if Trump’s tariff spat with Canada and Mexico shows us anything, it’s that Dumpy needs to say and feel that he has won, regardless of what story the facts actually tell.

Back to the 48 hours of contrast. Next up in the lion’s den after Starmer was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The aftershocks of that tumultuous meeting are still being felt now, and it’s hard to put into words what it feels like to watch international diplomacy being stripped, debased and then machine-gunned to death on live television. ‘Unedifying’ doesn’t quite seem to go far enough. Shithouser-in-chief J.D. Vance appeared to be intent on berating Zelensky for not showing enough gratitude to the US for its support in the war, despite the new regime’s perplexing shift in public position to claim it is all Ukraine’s fault in the first place. That we have arrived at a point where a US President has said “you have not said thank you to America and I don’t think that’s very nice” on live TV fills me with the urge to punch walls and kick furniture. Thankfully, fact-checkers were immediately on the case and were quick to point out that Zelensky had – on several previous occasions – thanked the US Government, both houses, several of its institutions and America’s citizens for their collective support, but it’s doubtful that Dumpy’s core fanbase watch those kinds of news shows because they use big words and don’t broadcast enough pictures. Ditto the ‘we gave you $350 Billion’ figure that the Donald seems to like throwing around like confetti outside a church in July; it’s been debunked enough times to make it look about as credible as Bigfoot, but all good Nazis know that any lie, if repeated often enough, has a funny habit of becoming the accepted truth. Those working inside the Kremlin must have laughed themselves to sleep last night, en masse.

So where do we go from here? We all know that Dumpy’s ego is very fragile indeed, and his bold proclamations of being able to stop the war within days of getting back into office now lie in smouldering ashes in a corner of the West Wing. If Plan A is dead, Plan B seems to involve rolling out the blame game. The realisation that he won’t be able to throw his trans fat-acquired weight around and cow Zelensky into a quick climb-down makes Dumpy very cross indeed. Cue lots of finger pointing, claims that Ukraine isn’t serious about peace, questions over Zelesnky’s credibility and approval rating, and several incoherent, rambling rants about wardrobe choices and NATO funding. Insert eyeroll emoji here. We can only hope that European nations (and the UK and France already seem to be taking a lead role here) can step up and attempt to broker some kind of deal that gets the US and Ukraine back round the table again. For sure, Putin is unlikely to want to negotiate with anyone other than Trump – Trump’s early 1990s comeback from Chapter 11 calamity was substantially funded by ‘overseas’ interests and this gives Putin tremendous leverage over Trump and his worldview. Any EU-led peace discussions are likely to focus on creating a much more equitable deal for Ukraine versus a US-brokered plan which already feels like it will be far more beneficial to Russia.

As I have said before elsewhere, provided he doesn’t start World War 3 there is a decent chance that Trump 2 will force the European continent to be much more self-sufficient, militarily stronger, and less reliant on the US when it comes to international relations. America may end up poorer as a result, but I’d suggest that we will not.